New Photos: Idaho Spring Birds & Wildlife 2017

On my way to Yellowstone this year, I made a detour. It was the Memorial Day Weekend, which meant the national park would be swamped with holiday visitors. In 2016 I successfully avoided these crowds by checking out a couple spots nearby in eastern Idaho: Camas National Wildlife Refuge and Market Lake Wildlife Management Area. The visit proved to be fruitful and quiet, with hardly anyone around. So I chose to begin my 2017 spring Yellowstone adventure there.

Though the owl action was nowhere near as good as last year, it was still a successful visit, with plenty of good bird sightings, and a few mammals thrown in (a brief glimpse of an otter and my best photo to date of a North American porcupine). I’ve added the images from this visit to the ongoing PNW Parks & Reserves 2017 photo gallery. A short preview of the new spring photos is below.

I had fun photographing the active and territorial Red-winged blackbirds at Camas National Wildlife Refuge.

A pair of Sandhill cranes made a brief appearance with two colts at Market Lake.

A Northern harrier flies in with nesting materials.

Brown-headed cowbirds were making territorial displays and calls in the wetlands at Market Lake.

This was my first opportunity to photograph newly-hatched Trumpeter swan cygnets.

The cygnets cautiously tested the depths of a small puddle.

This was my best encounter to date with the elusive and shy American bittern.

Marsh wrens are tiny, but passionate about announcing their presence.

Tree swallows sport a beautiful shade of iridescent blue plumage on their back and wings.